Trump: Will Twitter’s ‘Fake Accounts’ Purge Include NYT, WaPo?

Social media giant wiping 1 million accounts per day in battle against ‘fake news’

In a tweet comparing the New York Times and Washington Post with the “Russian bots” and other “fake accounts” being purged by Twitter, President Trump asked on Saturday morning if the social media company’s crackdown – it is already deleting accounts at the rate of roughly 1 million a day, amounting to a total of 70 million and rising – would include accounts belonging to the New York Times and Washington Post, news organizations that “constantly quote anonymous sources”, and that “will be out of business in seven years” (around the time Trump would be leaving office should he win a second term in 2020).

“Twitter is getting rid of fake accounts at a record pace. Will that include the Failing New York Times and propaganda machine for Amazon, the Washington Post, who constantly quote anonymous sources that, in my opinion, don’t exist – They will both be out of business in 7 years!.”

Twitter is getting rid of fake accounts at a record pace. Will that include the Failing New York Times and propaganda machine for Amazon, the Washington Post, who constantly quote anonymous sources that, in my opinion, don’t exist – They will both be out of business in 7 years!

Twitter has been stepping up its efforts to ban fake accounts, with the rate of suspensions having doubled since October.

The company has faced increasing scrutiny over allegations that Russian bots used it to spread “fake news” meant to “destabilize” the American electorate and democracy. However, as Facebook’s VP of advertising, Rob Goldman, said back in February following Bob Mueller’s indictment of 13 Russian nationals accused of operating a “bot farm” the majority of the advertising purchased by suspicious Russian bots happened after the election.

That has not stopped the left from demanding that Twitter do more to sanction these – and pretty much any other accounts it disagrees with, to which Twitter’s response has been to periodically (shadow)ban countless conservative accounts resulting in angry blowback from much of Twitter’s non-liberal user base.

As for the one-word answer to Trump’s question whether Twitter will ban the NYT and WaPo, here it is: no.